Circle Time Share Sessions

 clip art courtesy of mycutegraphics.com

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Every Monday I have a quick circle time share session.  This is when the children can choose one thing they want to share about after being away for the weekend.  It takes about fifteen minutes but it saves so much time later in the day.  It is also an inspiration for writing stories/journals and can be used for classroom management.  When you are having a lesson and a student wants to share something off topic you can simply say, "I can't wait to hear more about that at our next share session."

Usually I have a cute object we pass around the circle as we share.  The rule is that we should only hear the person holding the object.  This exercise is excellent in developing listening skills.  It also allows me to review our 5 Star Listening rules briefly after every weekend.

Some of the items I have had children pass around in the past are as follows

• an old microphone (the cord is cut off)
• a share stick (stick with pom poms, yarn, any decorative material hot glued to it)
• a maraca 
• Cowrella (a cow puppet we use for phonemic awareness exercises)
• squishy ball
• bean bag
• beanie baby
• huge eyeglasses with no glass in them

An idea I had last night before I drifted off to sleep is to have a decorative gift bag with several  foam cubes in four different colors.  For the first day I thought each student could come up and draw a cube out of the bag.

• If the student draws a red cube, he or she has to share something about his/her family.
• If the student draws a blue cube, he or she has to share about something he/she did this summer.
• If the student draws a green cube, he or she has to share about something he/she likes to play
• If the student draws a yellow cube (there is only one) then he/she is the first star student!

The star student gets to have a special seat cover and cone that says star student at his/her desk.  The star student is also the line leader for the week.

I like this activity because the children often freeze up not knowing what to share the first day.  It also allows me to go over what the star student is and how to become one in the future.  I can explain more if you are interested...

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